With seven months until the Assembly dissolves, Stormont faces a rush to pass key legislation including the flagship Good Jobs Bill. However, the biggest shortcoming of this year so far is the failure to agree a Budget, leaving departments unable to plan and increasing pressure on already-stretched public services. The next few months represent the Executive’s last chance to deliver for the public before the election, according to a new report from think tank Pivotal.

Despite some pockets of progress, as Stormont gets into the closing stretch of this mandate there are real concerns that this Executive will miss its chance to improve outcomes and begin addressing some of Northern Ireland’s most persistent issues.

The failure to pass the first multi-year budget in a decade, or even a single year budget, has left departments once more unable to plan for the longer term. Instead, more money has been spent on patchwork fixes. Sustainable policy change becomes harder to implement.

Ignoring tough choices – on hospital reconfiguration, wastewater infrastructure, the Investment Strategy and more – not only delays key and often necessary decisions, but makes these problems harder and more expensive to solve in future.